how do you make an array of floats (the distances between each vector) that keeps the index value of each float paired with it?

yeah, i was even involved in one that you helped out with.

still, I am a little lost. I get the sense that comparator wants objects as its arguments but mine, in this case would be simple floats, not associated with objects. Do you know of any examples that would do this?

My scenario is this I have a vector v1 and I want to get the distances between v1 and v[] (an array of vectors). When I sort them to get the closest, I need to know which of the vectors - its indices - it was from the original list...

any tips on optimizing the pattern - maybe I am creating objects where I don't need them...

for(int i = 0; i<hairs.length; i++){
 
 for(int j=0; j<hairs[i].cPts.length; j++){
   PVector ptA = new PVector(hairs[i].cPts[j].position.x, hairs[i].cPts[j].position.y, hairs[i].cPts[j].position.z);

   PVector[] closestPts = new PVector[0];
   
    for(int k = 0; k<hairs.length; k++){
     
      if(k!=i){
          for(int l=0; l<hairs[k].cPts.length; l++){
       PVector ptB = new PVector(hairs[k].cPts[l].position.x, hairs[k].cPts[l].position.y, hairs[k].cPts[l].position.z);
       
        PVector ptDifference = PVector.sub(ptA, ptB);
        if(i ==0 && j == 0 && k == 1){
        println(ptDifference.mag());
      }
        closestPts = (PVector[]) append(closestPts, ptDifference);
      }
       if(i ==0 && j == 0 && k == 1){
        println(closestPts);
      }
      Arrays.sort(closestPts, new AComparator());
      if(i ==0 && j == 0 && k == 1){
        println(closestPts);
      }
    }
 }
}
}
}

class AComparator implements Comparator {
int compare(Object o1, Object o2) {
  Float d1 = new Float(((PVector) o1).mag());
   Float d2 = new Float(((PVector) o2).mag());
   return d1.compareTo(d2);
//      return (d1<d2) ? -1 : (d1==d2) ? 0 : 1;
}
}